U.S. Pat. No. 5,868,012 disclosed a chain lock having a flexible wire lockable on a locking body for locking motorcycle, bicycle and travelling certificates.
However, such a chain or wire lock has the following drawbacks:
1. Once the travelling certificates including passport, air ticket and so on are locked on the wire (20) of the chain lock, an unlocking operation will be obstructed by the articles as locked on the wire because the wire end with the obturator (23) should be pulled outwardly (from FIG. 2 to FIG. 3 of the prior art) to eject the plug (21) at another end of the wire (20) in order to unlock the combination lock.
2. When rotating the dials (121) to a correct unlocking combination to align each notch (125) in each sleeve (122) with the protrusion (132) of the slide (13), but not yet engaged, as shown in FIG. 2 of the prior art, it should be very careful to hold the lock without moving the dials until pulling the obturator (23). Any unexpected accidental movement of the lock may unalign the notch (125) of the sleeve from the protrusion (132) of the slide, thereby obstructing the unlocking operation.
3. For unlocking operation, the user has his or her one hand holding the locking body and having another hand pulling the obturator of the wire. Two hands should simultaneously operate to cause inconvenience.
4. Two wire ends (21, 23) are separated in a right angle and are respectively connected to two sides of a rectangular locking body, which may form a blockade obstructing the holding of the locking body and may cause inconvenience for locking or unlocking the lock.
The present inventor has found the drawbacks of the conventional wire lock and invented the ergonomically manipulated cable combination lock.
The object of the present invention is to provide an ergonomically manipulated cable combination lock including: a housing, a cable or wire having one cable end fixed in a first hole in the housing and having another cable end secured with a locking plug lockable in a second hole in the housing, a plurality of dials and sleeves rotatably mounted on a bolt in the housing, and a control device having a push button pivotally secured in the housing and a sliding actuator normally locking the plug of the cable in the housing and operatively depressing the bolt for unlocking the plug upon depression of the push button, with the plug inserted in the housing to be angularly separated from the bolt in an acute angle to provide enough space for accommodating the relevant elements within the housing and also to allow a single-hand operation when holding the housing and depressing the push button for ergonomically unlocking the lock by a single hand of the user.